In a bombed-out husk of a building on the outskirts of the Syrian town of Tabqa, I met a family of nearly two dozen trying to wait out the hell of life under ISIS in Raqqa and the war for its liberation.

The smell of flesh leapt at us as we entered the house. But inside, life pushed on -- women washing clothes and dishes, men looking to salvage metal from the ruins of what once was an office building so they could sell it.

In the middle of this scene and hard to miss amid the rubble stood Bushra, a mother with wise eyes and a piercing smile. In her arms she held her 9-month-old baby girl. Nearby sat her 2-year-old boy. Neither has enough to eat or access to a doctor, she told me. All have survived the hell of an endless war